For some people it’s Christmas, for some it’s Mother’s Day: a holiday that hurts. Why this? Maybe because becoming a mother is so big. It is a process that never really is just “being”, there’s always “becoming”. It is a process that is never completed. And it often it is a process that does not have this one clear start of giving birth to a child. This can hurt.

The questions what it is being a mother is on my mind for over three years now. In 2014 our first son was stillborn and of course his death itself hurt beyond words. But what hurt as well was that I lost my “status” of being a mother, at least from the outside. I wasn’t a mother because I had no child with me. Still, I had loved and given birth to one. Mother’s Day 2014 was one of the most hurting days of my life.
A few months ago, a woman who I am very close to, gave birth to her stillborn daughter. She told me of similar thoughts and feelings. In the eyes of other people she wasn’t a mother anymore.

This sparked my own pain about this again and I realized that this pain is part of becoming a mother, of me becoming a mother, maybe of you becoming a mother.

What makes a woman a mother? To raise a child? To hold a child? To give birth to a child? To grow a child? To conceive a child? To hope for a child? To love a child? Define: mother.

In Germany and many other countries, it’s Mother’s Day next Sunday. I don’t know how you feel about this. However, up to this date there will be one report every day in this space, reports of women who talk about their paths of becoming mothers. Women of different ages, different backgrounds, experiences, attitudes. My and our hope is that there will be something that picks you up wherever you are. That there will be something that speaks to you, something that sparks courage and inspiration. And we hope that this will continue when you become part of define: mother.